I just started rewriting a prisoner that I could not do for the past 2 and half months. I am glad to be able to do so. Please keep him in your prayers. He is a dear soul, very lonely, and still has five more years to go. Please pray for him, and all prisoners without judgment on their souls, which is only in God's domain. 27 March 2025 Dear Gregory, I am happy to be able to come to the retreat house again and to write to you. I am glad you are getting your eye taken care of, and that your other eye is still in good shape. I admire your faith for I know that it must be hard for you there. Yet the Lord is forming you and when you get out, your faith will carry you and strengthen you on your journey. We are always on a journey, each day brings us something we have to face, as well as to choose to do God’s will over our own, which our own will is often self-destructive. Even if you fail, the Lord’s love will always be with you, never fear that. My journey also continues, and I am getting a little stronger every day. Please pray that it continues. Looking forward to hearing from you again, I will answer, hopefully sooner than in the past. Five years will go be fast, stay faithful, live in the present, and leave the past the the future to the infinite love and care of God. Stay close to the Blessed Mother. This letter will be short, but I will send a chapter talk I gave years ago. Humility and Monastic Life We are called to love ourselves, others, and to serve one another. In monastic life, we have our own unique ways of doing that. All forms of service to the community are very important, from being abbot to mopping the floor. When this is forgotten, someone else is burdened, and the one who burdens does harm to his own heart and soul, even if not believed or understood. It is a form of self-wounding, which in the end is what sin is. I can wound myself and then blame the community for my pain and feelings of isolation. To seek to grow in humility is also to seek inner healing. When we learn to have compassion towards ourselves, we can also show compassion and empathy not only for community members but also for those in our far past who are the origin of some of our struggles. As we grow in humility, we can be those who heal and not strike out and wound as we were wounded. For men, this is often undervalued when it comes to others, but it is another matter when we experience it ourselves. Empathy is learned from experience. It is the often gut-wrenching pain that others can cause me without realizing it that helps me to see how it can distress those I live with when I treat them harshly. When Jesus says that we have to become little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, could He be in reality telling us what we in fact are—children—and that what we often take for being a ‘mature adult’ is in reality a form of childishness? Being in control, dominating, always being right—is that really what we are called to be? Children are childlike by nature, and most adults love that. They make us smile, and with children, we drop our defenses for at least a while. Of course, there is nothing remarkable about this; it is in their nature. Until, of course, life happens and they become ‘adults,’ some may be so-called ‘mature adults.’ The true miracle is when ‘mature adults’ become childlike and enter the kingdom of heaven while on earth. It is a long process of death to self, which is in reality the doorway to a broader reality that is true adulthood, I believe. —Br.MD Looking forward to hearing from you again, I will answer, hopefully sooner than in the past. Five years will go be fast, stay faithful, live in the present, and leave the past the the future to the infinite love and care of God. Stay close to the Blessed Mother. In Christ’s Peace and Love Br. Mark Dohle
I had searched your monastery website not too long ago and noticed no progress report. I'm glad to see your health has improved!
The true miracle is when ‘mature adults’ become childlike and enter the kingdom of heaven while on earth. Thought provoking!
Welcome back Prisons remind me of monasteries in so many ways, in a nice way of course. When our hearts are free there are no bars, no cages to keep us prisoner. I think looking back on it the time I was in prison was the happiest of my life. But then I had just found God. John 8:36 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
